


Show Your Wounds, I'm Bored With Mine

by OhTigridia



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25450012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhTigridia/pseuds/OhTigridia
Summary: There’s a simple normalcy in Itaru that Chikage had not previously known. His life before had been so impermanent, he’d been taught to live each day as if it would be his last. Such domesticity was a treasure back then, something much more finite than the life he finds himself in now.This life is slower. Kinder. A groggy voice, and arms around his waist. Warm breath, and lips that graze his neck with the lightest of touches as he mumbles, half watching over Chikage’s shoulder.“How’re you so good at that?” He asks, still mostly in the realms of sleep.
Relationships: Chigasaki Itaru/Utsuki Chikage
Comments: 5
Kudos: 70





	Show Your Wounds, I'm Bored With Mine

Itaru is special, in the most mundane of ways. 

He’s a constant distraction from the awful things in his head, a source of companionship that helps calm him enough to get through each day.

There’s a simple normalcy in Itaru that Chikage had not previously known. His life before had been so impermanent, he’d been taught to live each day as if it would be his last. Such domesticity was a treasure back then, something much more finite than the life he finds himself in now.

This life is slower. Kinder. A groggy voice, and arms around his waist. Warm breath, and lips that graze his neck with the lightest of touches as he mumbles, half watching over Chikage’s shoulder.

“How’re you so good at that?” He asks, still mostly in the realms of sleep.

Not too long ago, he would have jumped from this kind of touch. Anyone who dared approach him from behind would likely end up with a knife lodged in their neck, but the touch of Itaru feels different. A disparate touch Chikage is learning to differentiate and welcome.   
To say that anxiety is gone would be a lie of course. Some days are harder than others, and it’s slow. Slowly, slowly, Chikage learns.

“I wonder…” He murmurs in response to the question, his lips broken into a teasing grin. He slides a spatula under the pancakes to wiggle them, and flip them to cook their other side. 

“Huh. Isn’t that cheating?” Itaru comments, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

“No. It’s just more convenient.”

“More like boring.” Itaru sighs. “With your cheat-skills and agility stats, I’m pretty sure you can flip a pancake, _Chikage_.”

Chikage may be the one called unromantic as a daily complaint, but something about Itaru calling him by his name never seems to get old. Still, he refutes his request, instructing him that: “Breakfast is nearly ready. Sit down at the table, and stop breathing all over me.”

Itaru rolls his eyes. “So unromantic.” He says once more, and sits in some awkward position upon a kitchen chair. He switches on his phone. Some anime girl calls a greeting as he opens one of his games, but Chikage can still feel his eyes boring into his back as he turns down the heat of the hob.

Chikage knows how to tell if someone is watching him. He understands the feeling of an unwanted presence watching your every movement in close analysis, and Chikage adds it to a list of " _Things he finds unpleasant, unless it’s just Itaru._ ” 

He grabs two plates, which clatter gently against each other as he pulls them down, as well as two mugs. He allows coffee to drip down from the machine, and turns his attention to plating their breakfast.

Still, he can feel Itaru’s cerise gaze staring at him. He turns to face him as he grabs a bottle of syrup from the shelf, as well as some chilli sauce for himself. He hears a long groan at that, to which Chikage cannot help an unsuppressed laugh.

“Is there a problem, Itaru?” He teases with his falsely innocent smile, catching the disapproving eyes of his lover. 

“You and your spices.” He says shaking his head. “You’ve got some weird heat resistance stats.” 

“I see...” He says with a smile of amusement, as he spreads a rather generous amount of the sauce on his pancake. 

“I don’t understand the appeal of sweets myself.” Chikage informs, but applies enough thick syrup to Itaru’s breakfast before turning back to him. He slides one plate across the table before seating himself.

“Thanks..” Itaru says. He cuts into his breakfast, and takes a large mouthful in some less than majestic manner. He’s half paying attention to the pancakes, half paying attention to something on his phone, and Chikage wonders why on earth he finds it so endearing.

Maybe it’s just calm. These simple mornings spent sipping on coffee, and watching Itaru scrunch his face in disgruntlement at something Chikage doesn’t quite understand. There’s no appeal in video games, but there is appeal in the expression of Itaru’s face. 

A part of him also respects him for having such hobbies. Though it’s not something he’d wish to dwell on, Chikage wonders if he’d have ever found that appeal in video games, should he have been raised in any other situation. Maybe it’s nice for him to feel glad Itaru has such privileges, and calming for him to breathe the life of more normal people.

“You keep staring at me.” Itaru comments around a fork of pancakes, as if he hasn’t been gawking at Chikage’s back the whole morning. He looks up, wide eyed and curious.

“What’s with that?” He asks.

“Just thinking.” Chikage responds vaguely, causing Itaru’s face to meld into an expression of confusion. 

“About what?” 

“Well, wouldn’t you like to know?” Chikage only purrs back.

  
  


—-

  
  


Eventually, the two manage to pull on work clothes. Itaru changed after having thrown his discarded pajamas in some heap on the floor. Chikage mulls over whether to force him to take responsibility for that later, or will just clean their whole room by himself while Itaru is gaming. 

It’s not as if Chikage minds cleaning, for it reminds him he has a home to come back to. It’s another thing he was taught, to keep the homes you live in clean and organised. Be grateful for what you have in the moment, that person would sermonise.

On the other hand, it’s also relatively amusing to listen to Itaru groan and complain about such things, he thinks. Chikage weighs up both options as he types code into a spreadsheet.

This office job is not something Chikage has come to do by his own volition. It’s another of April’s threads, a tie that binds him to his past. In that way, it had inevitably felt uncomfortable. 

Typing away, filing and organising hundreds of spreadsheets of data. The feeling of this is too similar to an old wound Chikage can’t quite heal from.

It's a reminder of those dark nights, when April alone had survived the winter’s massacre. He’d burned his eyes doing August’s job, alone in the dark with the light of his computer as the only company he could find in the solitary night.

Alone back then, the world was falling in on him.

As a sudden chill courses at his spine, Chikage looks up from his laptop to stare at his junior. He’s sitting obediently at the other end of the room, one hand pressed against his face as he reads the text on his computer. Itaru looks different at work, his hair thoroughly brushed, and lean body dressed in pressed suits. 

Nowadays the world feels less like drowning. Perhaps he’s still sinking slowly, but it’s less suffocating when he glances up from the sea crush of documents to meet the clear of Itaru’s eyes. Perhaps Itaru became the air Chikage needs to breathe.

Here. Today he’s no longer alone.

  
  


\----

  
  


It is inevitable that in the dark sometimes, Chikage feels he doesn’t deserve it. 

Itaru sleeps, the moonlight spilt from thin curtains upon his face. His hair is soft, unruly pieces that stroke the smooth sides of his face in some beautifully disheveled way. He’s gorgeous, unruined skin like fragile china, and Chikage moves to press his head against his chest.

The pattering thump of his heart beat, and murmur of breathing that escapes rosed lips. Chikage finds himself taking his hands, the contrast of unwounded skin against the scarred tissue of his own. He slides his thumb across his wrists, feeling the flow of his pulse, and as each lifeline connects, Chikage feels his eyes sting with unwelcome tears.

Chikage is dangerous, and Itaru is something so wonderful that Chikage is so selfish in taking.

Chikage’s own hands slip crimson blood. They hold steady precision with guns, and knives to slice and end a life silently. Such mannerisms make Chikage inhumane, and those wounds of his past he must take to the grave. There is no way he can tell such things to Itaru, and yet they threaten to bring such danger upon him. 

For it is, when he sleeps so peacefully next to him, that Chikage becomes aware of how easy it would be for him to kill him. Either voluntarily, if he should harbour such sick thoughts - or rather by the ghosts of his past. Maybe that knife under the pillow that he really should get rid of, and yet can’t seem to find the heart to. It would take one simple mistake, and everything would fall apart once again.

Such thoughts frighten Chikage, and pool thick nausea into his stomach. A sudden wave of dizzying panic, that makes Chikage want to run again.

He escapes - for just a moment to breathe he tells himself. He kisses Itaru’s forehead with a gentle touch. Some insignificant promise of return, that Chikage feels he owes even if Itaru cannot feel it. 

With his reflexed knowledge of how to escape unheard, Chikage slips into the winter’s night.

The air in the courtyard is cold, the beginnings of snow fluttering from the inky sky above. It knives at his frail skin, with no coat to protect him from such temperatures. He’s felt worse, but still shudders from it.

Chikage sighs, biting down a deep regret as he stares off at the cascading full moon. It tightens in his chest, a foreboding feeling of absolute solitude underneath it’s reign. The beauty of moonlight reminds him of the multitude of things he’s seen on nights gone by. He’d often felt that the moonlight was the only constant thing in his impermanent life.

In a better time, he’d held roughly scarred hands of a newfound guardian,and gazed off at this same moon. He’d listened to all of August’s peculiar anecdotes about things. How he’d say that the stars were just the souls of people who’ve passed on, and that even if they were to part, he’d still watch over him from the night sky.

In the present, he gazes up at the sky, and understands the bitterness of reality. He’s not a child anymore, all fantasy has long been stripped from his life. There’s none of August’s warmth in the moon or those sacred stars. 

He’s gone. Forever. Sure as the fact that no matter what, Chikage is always fated to end up alone.

He has Itaru now, but Chikage can’t help but question the reality of such things. It is as constant as the cycle of the sky, the cycle of Chikage’s abandonment. From mother, to August who had saved him, and like the waning moon, had disappeared into the night. 

In turn, the fear that Itaru will leave him is an inevitable fear. He’s learned to love Itaru, but that love seems to be such a dangerous thing.

He wonders if something will claw its way out from the darks of his history, and Itaru will be swallowed by the night as well.

_Or perhaps there won’t be blood._

Perhaps it will just be him, and his natural distance from people. If Itaru were to realise what secrets Chikage’s been hiding, he’s almost certain to run away in fear.

He’ll find someone kinder, more romantic and less scarred than he is. Someone _normal_ , with the right amount of warmth. 

_Someone warmer than the cool bite of April._

Maybe that would be for the best, Chikage wonders. Maybe it was all better when he was alone, with no one else to ruin with his cruelty.

“Chikage?” He hears a voice from behind. His tone is cautious as he walks slowly over. Careful, like curiously approaching some frightened animal. 

“Huh, You must be cold out here...” He says softly. There’s a certain feeling in his words. That sadness that Chikage hates. He feels that Itaru should never have to sound that way, especially not out of concerns for someone like Chikage. 

“...I thought we’d stopped the whole thing with running away at night?..” Itaru asks. Chikage doesn’t particularly know what to say to calm Itaru’s anxieties. He should never have to worry for him, and yet he always finds a way to make him worry more.

“Sorry I just meant to get a glass of water, but I got distracted...” 

_Since when was he such a terrible liar?_ He asks himself as the words slip from his mouth. They are feeble, and make him feel so vulnerable and exposed. It’s a feeling he’d always thought he’d grown out of, though maybe he’s starting to reach his breaking point again. Maybe he’s tired of his age-old liar’s game.

“Distracted by what exactly?” Itaru asks.

“Don’t worry about it.” Chikage replies. “Why are you here?”

“Dodging the question again?” Itaru murmurs. He shuffles his feet uncomfortably, but seemingly gives up on chasing him down for the moment. “I came because I heard you leave, and well.. I wondered what you were up to this time.” 

“Sorry…” 

Itaru sighs, he nods slow and understanding. “It’s alright…” He says, his smile is soft, though it looks a little forced. 

“It’s hard for you to talk about, isn’t it?”

Chikage can only nod, averting his eyes from Itaru’s generous gaze. That half smile only breaks his heart more, as a rampant feeling of nausea overwhelms him. He’s only causing further distress to Itaru, who is trying his best to hide it from Chikage. Try to spare Chikage’s pitiful feelings, as if such a thing would be well received. 

Chikage should be the one who smiles and hides his real negative state. It’s hypocritical of him to think that, but it’s the way he’s always been, so Chikage has gotten used to it. He doesn’t like the idea that he’s forcing his lover to do the same for his own benefit.

“Itaru…”

“I mean that’s fine with me, maybe your route just takes a little more time than others.” Itaru says, spinning his own eccentric metaphors. “But, can you at least tell me what you’re really up to leaving our room at… uh...” He pauses to flick on his phone, and then swiftly switch it back off. “3:40 am?”

“It’s nothing just…” He turns his gaze back to meet Itaru’s ruby eyes. 

“Do you trust me?” 

“Yeah, of course I do…”  
  
“...Why?”

“Hmm… ‘Cause we’ve been through a lot together I guess? I mean when we first met I wasn’t in a great place myself so.. I think talking to you helped me a lot back then… You were the first person who’d caught me playing games and didn’t judge me for it” Itaru laughs a little sheepishly, and then pauses. 

There is then a great amount of seriousness on his face. It contorts as he bites his lip, trying to concentrate on what words he should say.

“Chikage… I remember how you changed that one day in winter… it was kinda scary…”

Chikage flinches at that, though Itaru’s honesty is not unwelcome. He is probably right, and though he’d tried his best not to appear broken, it was likely inevitable that the grief would have escaped his imperfect facade somehow. Of all people to have noticed though, he was glad for it to have been Itaru. Everyone else had ignored it out of courtesy, if they had noticed anything was wrong at all.

“I don’t know what happened to you… but it must have been pretty bad and I’m sorry for whatever happened to you?.. But if you ever feel comfortable enough to tell me I’ll sit through anything you want to say.” 

“...That’s a little cheesy Itaru..” He says with a weak amusement. Itaru’s mouth immediately opens in defensive embarrassment, but Chikage cuts him off before he can express his offence.

“But thank you.. I appreciate it. I can’t promise anything, but one day I’ll try and tell you about it…. It’s just… still too fresh to properly say.” 

“Yeah, well that is understandable…” Itaru mutters, his cheeks still flushed with embarrassment. “...I’ll wait for you.”

“Thank you Itaru… I love you…”

“...I love you too…” He agrees softly. “...Unromantic as you may be when you tease me.” He laughs, the heavy mood finally starting to lift off their shoulders. 

There are times to be serious, and Chikage is glad enough to hear Itaru’s words of encouragement, but the light banter at the end of all things grounds Chikage in the present. The natural balance of their relationship takes the edge away from it all, so Chikage doesn’t suffocate from the weight of it.

“Yeah, well I never knew you were capable of such big, unscripted words.” He teases. “Well done with that. Now let’s go back to bed, you’re getting up at 6 for work again tomorrow.” 

“Chikageeeee~” He whines, following his boyfriend back into the warmth of their shared room.

It’s slow. The painful aftereffects of being human. Those scars, and trauma that can never be lost, but Itaru is more patient than can be imagined. In the end, they balance each other out, in a way that feels more natural than Chikage can say. There’s a quiet domesticity, a life he could never have dreamed of before he ended up here.

Chikage will wait forever with Itaru, until the sun finally sets on what’s left of April.


End file.
